TONGUE TWISTER Randy Mon, a US food stylist whose clients include food giants such as Kellogg’s and Cadbur y, has a joke he likes to tell. “How many art directors does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: does it have to be a light bulb?” While there may be no immediate danger of splitting your sides, you might at least get it when you consider how cornflakes come to look as they do on the box . “I make a smoothed-out bed of white vegetable shortening (a vegetarian alternative to lard), w hich allows me to place each flake and angle it how I want.” says Mon. “I go through boxes and boxes to find the best flakes. It can take half a day to compose. When it’s ready to shoot, I ’ll use an eye-dropper and add creamy hair tonic for the ‘milk’ so it doesn’t make the flakes soggy.” A nd just wait till dinner. “Meat shrinks and the skin w rinkles during cooking, so when you’re on a shoot, your commercial chicken is essentially raw on the inside. It’s only put in the oven long enough for the caramel colouring we add to adhere,” s ays Mon. If you think there’s foul play going on, you’d be wrong. It’s completely legal – after all, the flakes are no fakes, and the chook’s no turkey. And while advertising standards force stylists both in Australia and in the US to w ork their magic with often fragile foodstuffs, liberties are taken, says Mon. “ T he real elements of a product are invariably broken down and reconstructed.” Browning meat with a blowtorch, syringing dew drops onto tomatoes – Mon even uses Vaseline to meticulously attach sesame seeds to burger buns. Layers – in sandwiches and lasagnes – are held aloft with cardboard inser ts and pudding fruits are pinned in place with bobby pins. These are all old tricks of the trade. But there’s always some room for new creative thinking. HARD TO SWALLOW “ W hen I need a sauce like creamy salad dressing to cascade from a level spoon, for instance, I mould moistened cotton wool (just the stuff you rip off a roll) into the shape I want and coat it with the product,” says Mon. “If the product has the right body it won’t even drip.” “I did an ad for rice once,” says Stevens. “ To get the right shot we needed to keep the rice steaming for ages. We ended up soaking tampons in water, microwaving them and sticking them into the rice. A friend came over, licking her lips. ‘ I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,’ I said.” It’s the creativity of food stylists that is responsible for raising our expectations. But at the end of the day, we don’t expect to look like Elle Macpherson when we buy her Intimates, and food isn’t so different. No one wants to buy undies modelled by the average body any more than they want to eat pizza pictured with lopsided pepperoni. “I still fall for packaging on stuff like frozen pizza,” s ays Mon. “I fall for it every time. But how else can I choose?” Layers – in sandwiches and lasagnes – are held aloft with cardboard inserts and pudding fruits are pinned in place with bobby pins. What ’s c ooking , g ood looking? 082 VIRGINBLUE FOOD STYLING GOOD_TASTE_ TROMP L’OIL Food-styling tricks that you can try at home: • Keep some pre -scooped ice- cream in ser ving bowls in the freezer for a lovely frosted look and a slower melting time. • Before ser ving crisp crudités and fresh fruits, spray them with iced water to give them a dewy complexion. • Guarantee your roasting meat looks browned by brushing on some caramel food colouring before popping it in the oven. • Use piping-hot metal skewers to criss-c ross meat and fish, either before or after you cook it, to create a chargrilled look. • Magnify the colour and brilliance of a dish by ser v ing it on a mirror or a shiny surface. V1009_081_082_GOOD_TASTE.indd 082 V1009_081_082_GOOD_TASTE.indd 082 9/09/2009 10:27:38 AM 9/09/2009 10:27:38 AM